The cluster bomb has courted controversy since its induction in modern warfare in 1939. A conventional bomb consists of a single container carrying an explosive charge that is designed to explode upon impact. The cluster bomb differs through the addition of an outer casing carrying dozens of small bomblets. The casing splits open in mid-air, releasing a shower of smaller bomblets that impact over a broad area.
Often dropped by parachute, cluster bombs are highly versatile, if not particularly accurate. They can wreak havoc on soft or unarmored targets such as airfields and formations of men; cluster bombs containing shrapnel are able to pierce armored tanks and penetrate concrete. Cluster bombs really came to the fore during the Vietnam War. U.S. forces carpet- bombed the dense forests of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia with cluster bombs carrying chemical weapons such as napalm. The bombs were designed to set fire to the foliage in order to unmask the enemy,
but such indiscriminate bombing led to much loss of civilian life, compounded by the roughly 5 percent of bombs that fail to detonate.
Despite the dangers from unexploded duds and conclusive evidence that cluster bombs cannot be targeted precisely even with guided circuitry, cluster bombs have been widely deployed during recent conflicts in Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Israeli- Hezbollah war. Pressure has been mounting from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for a global pact to ban cluster bombs. To date the three major stockpilers, Russia, China, and the United States, have refused to commit to any treaty.
